Advice to Writershttp://www.advicetowriters.com/home/Wed, 19 Dec 2018 05:12:24 +0000en-USSquarespace V5 Site Server v5.13.511-311 (http://www.squarespace.com)It's Like WrestlingJWWed, 19 Dec 2018 05:11:23 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/19/its-like-wrestling.html393820:4274060:36141236It is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment — you know that’s what you’re in for, for whatever time it takes.

CHINUA ACHEBE

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36141236.xmlYou Always Have to Leave Something OutJWTue, 18 Dec 2018 05:02:40 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/18/you-always-have-to-leave-something-out.html393820:4274060:36140923It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because of what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many.

MARGARET ATWOOD

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36140923.xmlCreativity Is ParadoxicalJWMon, 17 Dec 2018 06:15:13 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/17/creativity-is-paradoxical.html393820:4274060:36140587Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

MICHAEL MICHALKO

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36140587.xmlRead Bad StuffJWSun, 16 Dec 2018 06:32:43 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/16/read-bad-stuff.html393820:4274060:36140355If you are going to learn from other writers don’t only read the great ones, because if you do that you’ll get so filled with despair and the fear that you’ll never be able to do anywhere near as well as they did that you’ll stop writing. I recommend that you read a lot of bad stuff, too. It’s very encouraging. “Hey, I can do so much better than this.” Read the greatest stuff but read the stuff that isn’t so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging.

EDWARD ALBEE

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36140355.xmlBeware of the MetaphorJWSat, 15 Dec 2018 05:06:32 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/15/beware-of-the-metaphor.html393820:4274060:36140201Beware of the metaphor. It is the spirit of good prose. It gives the reader a picture, a glimpse of what the subject really looks like to the writer. But it is dangerous, can easily get tangled and insistent, and more so when it almost works: don’t have a violent explosion pave the way for a new growth.

SHERIDAN BAKER

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36140201.xmlDon't Write a NovelJWFri, 14 Dec 2018 05:02:19 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/14/dont-write-a-novel.html393820:4274060:36139834If you want to be remembered as a clever person and even as a benefactor of humanity, don't write a novel, or even talk about it; instead, compile tables of compound interest, assemble weather data running back seventy-five years, or develop in tabular form improved actuarial information. All more useful than anything "creative" most people could come up with, and less likely to subject the author to neglect, if not ridicule and contempt. In addition, it will be found that most people who seek attention and regard by announcing that they're writing a novel are actually so devoid of narrative talent that they can't hold the attention of a dinner table for thirty seconds, even with a dirty joke.

PAUL FUSSELL

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36139834.xmlStreamline Your MessageJWThu, 13 Dec 2018 05:01:54 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/13/streamline-your-message.html393820:4274060:36139450Nobody—not even your dog or your mother—has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchoupitoulas. It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy. Nobody wants to read your shit. What’s the answer? 1) Streamline your message. Focus it and pare it down to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form. 2) Make its expression fun. Or sexy or interesting or scary or informative. Make it so compelling that a person would have to be crazy NOT to read it. 3) Apply that to all forms of writing or art or commerce.

STEVEN PRESSFIELD

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36139450.xmlCharacter Is the KindlingJWWed, 12 Dec 2018 05:02:46 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/12/character-is-the-kindling.html393820:4274060:36139105Usually, a story is triggered by a notion I have of a character in a particular situation, and the various reactions that character might have to the situation. My starting point is always the character. Person + event + reaction = what next? If something like setting or plot or a line of dialogue happens to be the spark, it’s not the kindling. Character is always the kindling.

PATRICK RYAN

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36139105.xmlWriting Is Facing Your Deepest FearsJWTue, 11 Dec 2018 05:04:22 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/11/writing-is-facing-your-deepest-fears.html393820:4274060:36138727Writing is facing your deepest fears and all your failures, including how hard it is to write a lot of the time and how much you loathe what you’ve just written and that you’re the person who just committed those flawed sentences (many a writer, and God, I know I’m one, has worried about dying before the really crappy version is revised so that posterity will never know how awful it was). When it totally sucks, pause, look out the window (there should always be a window) and say, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.

REBECCA SOLNIT

]]>http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/rss-comments-entry-36138727.xmlPace Is CrucialJWMon, 10 Dec 2018 05:04:50 +0000http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2018/12/10/pace-is-crucial.html393820:4274060:36138343Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn't enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of terrain, speed and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close, linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways.